INFLUENCE OF HIGH-TEMPERATURE ION NITRIDING REGIMES ON THE PROPERTIES OF THE VK8 HARD ALLOY

The most applicable methods for increasing the resistance of hard alloys are mechanical treatment, application of wear-resistant films and coatings. Along with this, heat treatment is another promising direction of improving the operational properties of cutting tools. The general disadvantages of these methods are a slight increase in durability and insufficient stability of the results obtained. In this regard, we carried out a series of experimental tests aimed at studying the effect of heat treatment of hard alloy products on their performance characteristics (hardness and wear resistance). The use of hardening technologies for processing cutting tools to reduce the instability of its cutting properties remains an urgent problem. There are various methods of hardening carbide cutting tools, which are conventionally divided into three groups: machining, coating and heat treatment, while heat treatment is easy to implement and allows obtaining acceptable results. The modes of heat treatment of powdered hard alloys differ significantly from the modes of processing compact steels. The presence of porosity intensifies many chemical processes during heat treatment due to the significant surface activity of products made of powder materials and increases the sensitivity to oxidation and decarburization during heating for quenching. The purpose of this work was to determine the influence of the effect of heat treatment (change in heating temperatures before quenching and tempering) on the hardness, strength, bending and wear resistance of hard alloy samples.